


I don't want to be brave

by woodworms_before_breakfast



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:16:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woodworms_before_breakfast/pseuds/woodworms_before_breakfast
Summary: She is a mirror of him, and like all mirrors, she is far too easy to shatter.
Relationships: Gwaine & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Morgana (Merlin)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15
Collections: The Melee Challenge





	I don't want to be brave

**Author's Note:**

> Melee Challenge: January 16 - January 23, 2021  
> Prompt #2 (Shatter)

The first time he told her he loved her, she smiled and laughed, and broke the mirror in the hallway when he left. He came back, looking for the keys he’d left behind, and found her crying on the floor with shards of glass in her hand.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered. He put his arm around her, wiping away her tears and swallowing his own.

The second time he told her he loved her was in the hospital. With the thin, white sheets wrapped around her thin, white figure, they held each other, and it felt like the world. A heaved sob that was farewell, even if she didn’t know it. A bandage around her wrist that brushed against his back as they embraced.

Gwaine found him on a bench in the park, draped over the seat like a piece of cloth. He was out of his mind, the scent of alcohol puncturing the air, and his shirt was wrinkled and ripped, like he had been tearing at it. No one was around to watch as Gwaine beat him, and beat him.

He thanked Gwaine later, as they panted and gasped for breath, side by side on the bench. There was a pained twinkle in Gwaine’s eyes, a miserable shadow of the joy that had used to fill them.

“You always knew how to manage me,” he said quietly, rubbing the bruise on his cheek.

Gwaine sighed. “I didn’t want to, Merlin. If there was any other way- I didn’t even do it for her. Lord knows, what you’ve done to her, she’s done far worse to you. But Arthur told me it was the only way to wake you up.”

“I deserve it.” The words were muffled; by tears or by blood, neither of them could tell.

“You don’t, Merlin. You don’t, and if there’d been any other way to shake you out of it, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Merlin ran his fingers through the crusty hair plastered to his temple. “I don’t want to leave her. Not when she needs… But I can’t take care of her, Gwaine.”

A frantic pounding on the bathroom door, crimson-tainted water seeping out beneath the crack. Silence on the other side, except for the gushing of bathwater. Screaming, kicking, until he finally thought to call Arthur and Gwaine. Breaking down the door, finding his entire world blown apart by what he saw-

“She hurt you first,” Gwaine whispered. “You don’t owe her anything.”

The third time he told her he loved her was a year after the second. He found her apartment with Gwen’s help, and the rusty, creaking staircase that led up to her floor was a winding path of uncertainty. Fear, and doubt. Would she open the door for him?

“Merlin?”

Not a question, but an accusation. He lifted his gaze, and she was standing in the doorway, a bag of groceries in her arm (which, he noticed, was covered with a flowing blouse sleeve, so that no one could tell if there was a bandage beneath).

“Morgana,” he said, pleading, begging. There were tears in her eyes now, and in his, and the groceries were falling to the floor. He ran up the rest of the stairs and pulled her into his arms.

The sleeves of her blouse crumpled up, and there was no bandage underneath. He exhaled, the breath leaving him even as air rushed into his lungs. _I’m sorry_. They untangled slowly from each other’s arms, and she was smiling at him. _I’m sorry, too_.

“Don’t shatter me,” she whispered. And then they were crying, because there was no bandage on her arm, because the second time he told her he loved her was in the hospital.

They exchanged a look of love and loss, and he turned and headed back down the stairs.


End file.
